Purge's Dilemma
by SmashQueen
Summary: Purge awakens to find that something is very wrong with his voice...


_"See you next week!"_

How did it go so wrong? It had been well over a week, sure, but it was going so well.

One moment he was on the verge of fully carrying out his holy mission by the gods of dance and the next he was sent hurtling into space.

Again.

By the blinding light of Love.

And he _still_ didn't know what it was.

Now he lay in a white, sterile room with the scent of medicine and sick people in the air. What in the galaxy had he done to land himself there? Judging by the stiffness in his cast-encased limbs and the resulting twangs of pain, he'd been in an accident. He let out a high-pitched hiss as he tried to lift an arm, but decided against straining himself any further.

There was no way he was making a comeback without being able to point in four directions and tinker with his robots. He would never give up, but there was such a thing as waiting for an opportune moment. All he had to do was wait for his injuries to heal and he could make a stunning appearance once again to make the masses of the galaxy happy and peaceful.

Ah, screw it. If he waited around, the Space Police would cuff him and only delay the enlightenment of their lives. With no robots he had no backup and it wouldn't take much to create a few dozen robots to cater to his needs while incapacitated. As long as he could create one to get him out of there. That or tinker with some of the electronics around the infirmary. Either way worked in his favor.

His genius mind made up, he shifted his left arm only to yelp in pain.

Only he wasn't the one who had yelped. His crafty eyes darted this way and that, attempting to catch sight of the reporter who had done him in twice now.

"Come on out, swe-" He stopped speaking. His excellent hearing must have been affected by the accident. He blinked and spoke again, adjusting his vocal chords as he always did when he sang, "They call me Purge - wh-what the Hell?!" The man stopped singing and gritted his teeth. The voice he had was strained, irritated, and above all, feminine. A look of absolute horror came over his face as realization dawned on him.

He had spoken in the voice of Space Channel 5's best reporter. The one he had purposefully sought after for her groovy dance power. The one he had teased and taunted all the way to their final showdown. The one nobody had been able to out-dance; not aliens, robots, manic CEOs, or geniuses with holy missions.

Ulala.

_Foosh._ The automatic door to his ward had opened.

"Oh, you're awake," came a refined voice, the door sliding shut with another _foosh_. Purge craned his neck to peek around the partially drawn alabaster curtain, seeing a tall man donning a long, white coat enter the room. He was a stereotypical doctor complete with a stethoscope hanging around his neck, a doctor's light adorning his cranium, and a clipboard in hand. The guy seemed just as clean-kept as the room, not a brown hair out of place on his head.

Why did women always flock to doctors? Dancing geniuses with spiky, sexy, lightning-like hair were just as good, if not better.

"So how are we feeling?" asked the doctor, giving a nervous smile at the patient.

"Horrible!" cried Purge, "Just listen to me! I sound like Ulala!" It was one thing to be out of commission, but so much relied on his specific voice! His sweet, sultry voice...

"I'm sorry to hear that, Purge," replied the physician, not at all sounding completely apologetic. In fact he had raised the clipboard to block the lower half of his face from the young man. "It says here that a giant, metal 'P' collided with channel 88's ship. That 'P' took the brunt of the impact. You're very lucky to be alive." Purge groaned,

"How am I supposed to lead the brutish and unhappy masses of the galaxy sounding like this?!" He shuddered. Having Ulala's voice was not at all comforting. Hearing it was one thing, even in defiance, but coming from his own mouth sent uneasy chills up and down his spine. The doctor merely shook his head.

"Space Police Chief Pine was right," he muttered lowly, "You _will_ need more than just physical therapy." Purge narrowed his eyes at the implications, but batted away the thought. He was perfectly sane. A little eccentric, but never crazy.

With his train of thought back where it should be, Purge quickly processed what this new change in his voice would bring. Weighing the pros and cons, of which the latter clearly won out on, he came to a conclusion.

And he was far from happy.

"But..." he started with a whine, looking at the doctor, "I'm sweet, sly, and sexy! This can't happen to me!" The doctor shook his head side-to-side and responded,

"I'm sorry, Purge, but there's no way to treat this. I suggest plenty of fluids, maybe some painkillers if your arms and legs keep bothering you, a session or two with a Space Therapist...and a new hobby to keep you busy."

"My hobbies are just fine, doctor," returned the prodigy, an edge of distaste in his words. He winced slightly at how much he sounded like Space Channel 5's reporter. There was no way he was getting used to such a thing.

_Foosh._

"Ulala? Is that you?" Both the doctor and Purge peered over at the door where the woman had spoke from, although only the former was able to see who it was. The door _foosh_-ed shut once more.

"Ah, Space Police Chief Pine. Thanks for stopping by," the doctor greeted with a smile. Pine. One of quite a few names the amazing Purge wasn't going to forget anytime soon.

"Space Channel 5's Fuse asked me see this slimeball face-to-face," spoke the confident female. Now, when was the last time he'd heard that tone, hmm? "He made a few suggestions on what to do about Purge."

"A feisty one, aren't ya?" teased Purge, smirking all the while. His voice, however, didn't have the usual charisma to it. Nor did it have the intended effect.

"Ulala?" Footsteps approached the bed and the face that came into view was quite a familiar one. Purge had never been wrong when it came to recalling faces and events. "I thought you said-" The Space cowgirl look-alike widened her eyes upon sighting the 'missionary.' She hastily regained her composure and glared.

"Purge," she stated with disdain. "I thought I had seen the last of you." He smirked back at the officer. Even if he couldn't move and his vocal chords were mangled, he still had his personality.

He was still 'Genius Purge.'

"So the Western Venus missed me?" he said in a playful manner. It was the same tone he always had when talking to a certain pink-haired reporter. "Aw, you're too kind." Pine's mouth dropped open. Sure, the maniac had been in the channel 88 collision and no, the wreck hadn't been fatal. But seeing someone like Purge speaking like he did with that exact, familiar voice...

"You...you sound like Ulala," she said in awe. The doctor interjected,

"It's a direct effect of the accident, I'm afraid. Although why he sounds like Ulala of all people, I'll never know." The specialist shook his head. "Well, I'll just leave you two. Purge is stabilized, but still needs his rest so while you can talk to him for a little while, you will need to leave soon. Nurse Sushi-Moro should be in later."

"Thank you, Doctor Smashen," bid Pine and with a generic farewell from the man, the drummer and dancer were left in the small room. Pine cleared her throat,

"You're going to a space trial when you can walk. Apparently we couldn't heal that sick mind of yours so maybe the men in those clean, white coats over at the Space Asylum can. You're going to be surrounded by padded walls, Purge, I'll make sure of it!"

"We'll see," Purge replied, mentally biting his tongue to keep from uttering anything else. It was bad enough his voice was changed to that of a woman in her early twenties, now he had the pending doom of a nuthouse hovering over him. Even his BuffBots knew he wasn't insane. He may have programmed them, but that wasn't the point.

Pine turned on her heel and marched out of the room, dual _foosh_-es signaling that she had exited. Though the steel door did nothing more than muffle the snorting and laughter on the other side. A blanket of silence returned only interrupted by the beeping of several machines hooked up to his person. Not daring to speak and remind himself of what had resulted from his last failed attempt at making everyone happy, Purge was left to his memories and musings.

The last time he had been defeated, he wound up crashing at some point. A backup squadron of his robots had managed to find him and restore him back to good health. They weren't programmed to do much else than basic search and recovery work so it was still a mystery as to how he broke out of his metallic prison in the first place.

Inside a proper infirmary this time meant he had somehow been saved again. The dance gods truly meant to protect him. It had to be a sign that his mission was meant to be carried out by him, the one and only Purge!

Unfortunately the emptiness in his stomach was getting to him. If he had to drag himself out of the hospital to avoid the food served there, so be it.

He was snapped out of his thoughts by a sudden burst of yelling and crashing from the corridor outside his door. By the time he caught a robotic "Chu", he was beaming ear-to-ear.

"Over here!" Purge shouted, quickly shutting his trap. Of all people, why did he have to gain Ulala's voice? It was enough to get on anyone's nerves.

_Foosh._ In flew a trio of silver flyers, based on one of his oldest designs and modified to last. A genius always accounted for a backup plan and apparently his forethought had paid off. The eyes on the bot to his right glowed for an instant and Purge grinned. It wasn't long before a BuffBot stormed in, opening the window with the press of a button while the first units acted as boosters for the hospital bed their creator was on.

Within the span of a minute Purge was safely detached from the various machines he had been hooked up to and his bed was flying straight out the window, heading off towards an escape pod. Another minute later and he was comfortably situated in the space provided by the patient capsule, giving Pine and any roaming reporters the slip. When some of the liberated painkillers finally kicked in, Purge was able to take the control panel apart and fiddle with the wires to reroute his destination.

Needless to say, he lost any and all pursuers. He didn't need any this time.

When the genius was finally at an undisclosed location with his bots, their pre-computed orders carried out to make Purge as cozy as possible while making sure his health wasn't in any further danger, he gave a sigh of relief. The violet room he was in had clearly been put together recently, but at least it was more tolerable than where he had been not long before.

Although the poster of Ulala in her old, orange costume was a bit much at this point.

Leaning back on some fluffed up pillows, all seemed to be going according to plan. His robots were keeping an eye on his vitals and waiting patiently in between periods where they would check up on the...borrowed machines. Between him and the sixty-inch plasma television, there was just one inconvenience:

His voice still sounded like Ulala. Even his intonation from 'Do' to 'Ti' was off due to the sudden change. Though by far the most difficult thing was getting several robots to get out of his view of the screen.

"Move! Get out of the way! You're supposed to listen to me!" he yelled. The Rhythm Rogue bots simply continued to sing along with the commands his televised self was giving. "Ugh!" Purge growled at the backs of his inventions.

_"Chu! Chu chu!"_

_"Ready to fire...! Chu! Chu chu!"_

"Give me back the remote," Purge demanded, a tinge of ire starting to set in. An intermission screen popped up soon after, 'SCC' appearing in bold, white letters over a background of many news channel icons. He tried not to notice Space Channel 5's over on the lower right as a man with suave vocals began to speak,

_"This is Space Classic Coverage, replaying your favorite news coverage of the week and beyond! This next half-hour is dedicated to our most requested report: Space Channel 5's exclusive 'Connected Hearts'! Feel the beat and the love!"_

"I don't need love!" Purge growled, "Every time I try to understand, _this_ happens." Not that the robots cared, but he was referring to the current state his body was in. It was no use; without his normal voice, they wouldn't listen to any of his orders, especially the Bodyguards at the front of his hideaway.

_"Ballistic Groove Gun firing in three...two...one!"_

"My smooth, sexy voice..." he whined, trying to disregard the commands the spunky pink-haired reporter was singing back on screen.

_"Up! Right! Left! Down!"_

"Up! Right! Left! Down!" recited the cluster of automatons to the beat. Purge groaned and chose to lie down, glaring at the ceiling as if everything was it's fault. Really, the poor thing wasn't even sentient.

"Left! Right! Down! Up!" Purge moved a pillow over his face just enough to try to block out the droning of his subjects. He was forced to hear his downfall, this time from the outside.

He was truly going to go insane. With Ulala's permanent voice, the young man couldn't control his robots anymore. The 'Do What I Say!' circuit was useless and it would take time to readjust his mechanical army to respond to his new voice. No, not respond to _this_ voice. He needed to at least modify it somehow, artificially it seemed, to regain some sort of hold on his Rhythm Rogues.

Weaving the schematics for a voice modifier through his mind, he barely realized he was muttering along with the final stretch of _'Connected Hearts.'_

What was so bad about dubbing real words with 'la' or 'chu'?

"Chu chu chu. ...Sing with us. ...Sing with us. ...What i-" Purge ceased singing and peered up to see his robots still vocalizing. He sighed heavily and admitted in a one final thought before concentrating on that voice modifier:

He would have been better off at the Space Asylum.

* * *

A/N: Did some last minute fixes before posting, but here it is. This came up while talking with FinalSmash about another fanfic and Purge versus Purge Junior... Which eventually resulted in the idea that Purge got in an accident and damaged his vocal chords. Now he sounds like Ulala. :D I'll admit that it was difficult deciding how to end this. Purge could've suffered a little more humiliation at the hospital...or he could have escaped and still be infuriated. Or whatever. Figured just go with what I could (Thanks FS). ^^

Ulala-voice Purge is not amused.

"What is love?" XD Seriously had to resist playing on that line.

Disclaimer: Space Channel 5 (c) SEGA


End file.
